'Thanks!' he said.
He was lying in a shallow depression between two of the white trunks. A depression which he was quite certain had not been there a few minutes ago. One trunk must suddenly have subsided, and in doing so, upset him. But why?
He crawled to a spot where he could look over the back of the wall, and found himself gazing into a pygmy face. Without hesitation he crashed a fist into it, and sent the owner tumbling backwards. There were others down there. But how had they got past the wall? He looked along and saw one in the act of emerging from a hole. The pygmies must have withdrawn logs from several places in the wall, under cover of their platform. In some spots those above were so jammed as to leave a way right through, whereas in others, such as that directly below him, the logs above had fallen down to close the hole. He caught up his fallen club, and sprang down with a shout. Only about a dozen of the pygmies were through so far, and when four or five other men joined him, they were soon accounted for. It became necessary, however, to set a guard on the holes to prevent more getting through.
'Just as well I fell when I did,' Mark thought. 'A few more minutes, and they'd have been in in dozens.'
He stood watching a hole in the middle of the wall. He was glad of the rest, for he had nothing to do now but keep an eye on it, and bring down his club on anything that came out of it.
'Hey?' called a voice above him.
He looked up to see Ed's tousled, full-bearded head.
'Get me one of those puff-balls, will you? A ripe one, buddy, and handle with care.'
'What about this?' Mark pointed to the hole.
'That's O.K. I'll watch it.'
Mark obediently sought one of the largest puff-balls and trundled it gingerly up to the wall.
'Can you lift it?' Ed inquired.
Mark could, with some difficulty, for it was a cumbersome object. Ed reached down as far as possible, and between them they managed to get it intact to the top of the wall. There Ed sat down and began carefully to cut long incisions with a sharp stone. Mark stood below with attention divided between Ed's operations, and his guardianship of the hole. He was puzzled, for there was fighting still going on along the wall, and it was unlike Ed not to be in the thick of it.
'What's it for?' he asked.
Ed chuckled. 'Come up and see.'
Mark climbed back to the wall top and sat down. A head was at once thrust experimentally out of the hole below. Mark dropped a stone on it, and it was withdrawn.
Ed continued to make incisions radiating like meridians from the poles of the puff-ball. None of the cuts was deep enough to split the skin, but the whole was weakened almost to bursting-point. The fighting had now become half-hearted, compared with the first attack. Probably its object had been to keep the defenders employed while the pygmies climbed through their holes in the wall. Now that the rear attack had not come, the 'natives' were flagging.
Ed examined his puff-ball, and grinned with satisfaction. He picked it up, raising it with both hands above his head. For a moment he poised, then he swayed forward, heaving with all his weight. The ball lobbed into the crowd of attackers. Two 'natives' went down beneath it as it burst. A cloud of white spores broke out like a flurry of snow. The men close to it were blotted from sight. A sound of coughing and spluttering arose from within the drifting mist. As it spread, growing more tenuous, the figures of 'natives' became visible, bent double in paroxysms of coughing, while with each breath they took, they drew more of the irritating feathery spores into their lungs. The cloud of white dust spread wider, afflicting more of the attackers. They lost all capability of fighting. Their eyes streamed so that they could barely see; they staggered to and fro, sneeezing, gasping, wheezing like the worst asthmatics. Ed gave a bellow of delighted laughter.
'Hey, gimme your jacket, and fetch another,' he directed.
He began to swing the coat before him, fanning the drifting spores away from the wall.
Within a few minutes there was a haze of spores all along the line, and the defenders had abandoned their clubs in favour of ragged improvised fans. The 'natives' were hopelessly demoralised. They could do little more than stagger, so exhausted were they with their efforts to cough up the fungus dust. The pygmies, below their testudo of mushroom heads, were in little better plight, for they had begun to breathe the spores which filtered through from above. Those who were not deafened by the sound of their own and other's coughing must have ground their teeth with anger as the familiar roar of laughter rose once more from the defenders. There was nothing to be done. They were too hopelessly disorganised for further action. As best they could they crawled free of their mushroom shields and made their way, an orderless, anomalous crowd of choking, sneezing miser-ables, back to the passage mouths. Gusts of laughter from the wall harried them on.
Ed. in a state of uproarious childish delight at the success of his 'gas attack', flung jibes after the rout. Zickle had broken into some heathen chant of victory. Even Mark found himself laughing at the farcical climax of this second attack.
The last gasping pygmy fled from the sound of jubilation, but the hilarity continued. It took Smith a long time to impress on his followers that it was necessary to repair their defences.
CHAPTER VII
Mark looked up at Smith.
'It must be several days since that second attack. Do you really think they'll come on again?'
'Sure thing,' Smith nodded emphatically. 'Why else'd I have gotten the wall mended?' He looked across at Gordon, who agreed.
'They're sure to try to get us one way or another. They can't afford to let us escape at any cost in casualties.'
'But it's so long since that puff-ball business. They may have given up.'
'Not they. I reckon they're putting their heads together and thinking up a new dodge.' Smith paused. 'What gets me is the ingenuity of 'em last time,' he continued. 'Another few minutes and there'd have been hundreds of 'em through the wall. Didn't guess the little guys had it in them to think up a stunt like that.'
'They haven't,' said Gordon. 'I'll bet anything you like that Miguel or one of his crowd put them up to it; what's more, its ten to one that whoever did it is putting them up to another one now. Don't forget, this means a lot to them—just as much as it does to us. They are out to nail us, and as a matter of fact, if they do give Miguel the run of the outer caves, he stands a better chance of getting out than we do.'
'Well, in that case,' said Mark thoughtfully, 'what are we here for?'
The others stared at him.
'I mean if we surrender and Miguel gets out, he won't keep quiet about this place. There'll be an expedition down here—just as there will be if we get out—so if he's got a better chance, why not let him go willingly?'
'You're forgetting something.'
'I don't see-'
'You're forgetting that Miguel made a bargain with the pygmies. I don't know what pygmy morals on a point like that are, but why should they keep it? He's got no way of making them keep it that I can see. Suppose they're just using him? They must know what his little game is, sure enough, but they won't let him play it.'
'Besides,' Gordon broke in, 'if they can beat a hundred and fifty of us, they'll ask themselves why they should kowtow to Miguel and his lot—and they'll find there's no reason why they should. The thing I don't understand is his falling for their promises. It's not like his kind to do a deal without guarantees.'